Beauty of the Forest
by Pixargirl
Summary: "She was was the one that cared about me. She me not to. They used me I should've listen to her."


**Author's Note: This based on a youtube video that I really like and I think it's a cute pairing.**

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_Chapter 1_

I sit in my once working factory. Wishing. Each day grows more unpredictable for me, yet the world never does. Well for me anyways. Knowing everything I once loved and held was gone. I have nothing, but the empty factory. _They _took everything from me. I have no one.

I don't read the papers anymore. Though really, why should I? I know what's happened and I think I know what'll happen in the future. Most people don't think like that or are even sure. I don't even know if I'm sure about what I say... But so far in the past several years I've been right. I want to talk somebody. Why? I don't know maybe it'll accomplish something.

Everyday I just sit down in my office looking at nothing but what's around me. Most of the time I just stare at the wall, other times I'll be staring at the boarded up windows. The thing that I try to not stare at is the door, every time I look at it I always feel reminded of what came in here and what left. I want to forget about it, but I can't and I won't. It hurts too much. I turn around to look at something else, that being the empty bulletin board. So many notes, charts, and other insignificant things that don't matter to me anymore, I should've realized it.

I sigh. Why am I still here? What have I been doing? Why am I waiting for so long and for what? The town is confined and no one ever leaves. They're happy with what they have. No one is interested, she'll never come back, and I'm just waiting around for things to get worse. I CAN'T DO ANYTHING! I lay my head on the desk feeling like I want to sob until my heart gives out. But I can't. I want something to happen to me. I don't care what. I probably wouldn't be missed.

_SCREEEEECH. _What'sthat noise? I look outside from my boarded up window to see nothing but the stumps of what was once trees, a pointless road between where the grackle grass grows that leads to my factory, and the dark of the night. Pretty storm I might add. I turn on a couple lights inside my office, a bit too bright though. I still see nothing, except a lantern's light is on. That's when I see a boy riding on a one-tire scooter. Must be from Thneedville. What does he want?

He walks by the small ring of stones. Unless. I don't think he know that I'm watching him. Sounds creepy, but I don't want him here. He might be one of those punk kids who like destroying and vandalizing property; and what better place to do it than a closed factory and a rickety old shack. He takes out something from his pocket. I can't see it but probably rocks or some firecrackers. Damn brat. I can't let him destroy this place. It's my home… it's… it's all I have left. I won't let him destroy it. It won't be destroyed.

I've set up traps around my factory so no one would ever have to bother me. Hopefully it'll scare him away. I hear the creaking of steps assuming it's the boy. The doorbell is rung and a trap has begun. _**THUNK **_goes the mallet as it hit the platform where the boy is standing. As he flies into the air, over the roof, flailing about and screaming. His body ends up turning head first while in the air. Not wanting the kid to get killed I pull a lever from the wall that causes a retractable claw from my factory to grab him by the seat of his pants before he hits the ground.

However, I still want to know what this kid's doing here use the claw to pull him up to my window. He dangles upside-down near the window, horrified while my green-gloved arms are reaching out for him as I yell, "Who are _you_?"

He wriggles some more.

"WHO ARE YOU?" I yell even louder. "And what are you doing here."

He huffs and puffs from shock and his near-death experience as he gets his thoughts together. "I'm Ted. I'm Ted!" he answers still out of breath, and the fact that the air is unclean doesn't help, as he tries to say something else. "Are you- are you… the Once-ler?"

This is strange why does he know who I am and what _does_ he want?

"Didn't you read the sign? No one is supposed to come here!" I yell at him. I lower clamp setting him down and try pushing him to the path. Though not in the way he thinks. "Get out of here and leave me alone. And don't let the boot hit you on the way out." 3… 2… 1… Out comes another one of my traps. The boot.

The boy doesn't leave and takes something out of his pocket. I grab a pair of binoculars as I see what he has in his hand isn't pebbles or sparklers, but what looks to be coins, a nail, and the shell of a great-great-great grandfather snail. It's that blasted old wives tale. "Listen people say that if someone brings you this stuff that you'll tell them about trees!"

Trees. He wants to know. Maybe? I bring him back up to the window to talk him. As he objects being grabbed by the claw. "Trees?" I say for the first time in a long time to someone else.

"Yeah. Real ones, you know, that grow out of the ground," he explains with what limited knowledge he has of them. They really don't know what a tree is. Do they? Yet he really cares about knowing what they are.

"Hello?" He interrupts me from my thoughts.

"Sorry… it's just… Well, I didn't think anyone still cared about trees." I respond to him calmly.

"Well, that's me! The guy who still cares. I'm here!" he tells me hesitantly as he reacts again when the mechanical arm sets him on a pile of rocks. I feel like I'm about to break his spirits as tell him.

"You want to know about tree? About what happened to them? Why they're all gone?" I ask the kid rhetorically. He looks up at the window expecting an answer as whisper it. "It's because of me." I feel embarrassed saying about this, but I don't think he heard me when he asks "what?"

I lower a long metal tube known as the Whisper-Ma-Phone for him to hear as I say it once more but louder, "**It's because of me****!**" I hear him coughing reminding me of how old this thing is. As he coughs I explain vaguely of why it's my fault, the thing that drove me to ambition and greed. "And my invention. The Thneed." I grab a Thneed by the door, which looks like a pink sweater-ish type of thing. It hasn't aged since I first made it. Back when I made this for her and me. Back when I was doing this for me. I remember there's a kid out there that needs to know what it is. I run toward the window holding it out there for him to see. "It was an amazing product that could do the job of a thousand."

"Alright… sounds ridiculous. But, I mean, that's cool." He hesitates not believing me.

"You're darn right it was cool." I sign. "It all started a long time ago…"

_Then I get interrupted_. "Can we start not so long ago maybe?"

Why are kids so impatient? "Do you _want_ a tree?"

"Yes. Yes…" Hesitant kid isn't he.

"Then it all started a long, _long_ time ago…"

And so our tale begins…


End file.
